The Look of Love

by Kelly, Julia

  Her shoulders tensed. She wanted to tell Gavin of her plans for the Royal Sculpture Society’s exhibition, but the events of the last week made her hesitate. She wasn’t quite ready to let him in again, and whether she liked it or not his approval did matter.

  “I wanted a challenge,” she finally said. “I’ve never worked on a sculpture this complex before.”

  There. That wasn’t a lie, just an omission of the truth.

  “May I?” he asked, his expression unreadable.

  Swallowing down her nerves, she watched him cross her studio to touch the marble. He mirrored what she’d done just moments earlier, running his hand along the slope of Hero’s back. But he didn’t stop there. He walked around the block of stone, examining it as though it were the finest Greek marble.

  “I’ve never understood how you can look at a piece of rock and see the art that’s lying dormant inside of it,” he said.

  “I’ve never really been able to see it any other way,” she said.

  He smiled. “Do you know, I think that’s what I’m most jealous of. You create beauty. You make things people treasure and look at with wonder.”

  “Then I suppose I should be envious of you,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “You forget, I’ve long admired your writing,” she said. “I was waiting outside the bookstore before it was open the day your novel came out.”

  “You were?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “And do you know what I did when I finished it? I flipped back to the beginning, and I read it all over.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was trying to figure out what it would be like to write like that. I can pen a serviceable letter or answer an invitation, but the written word eludes me in a way I’m sure you’ve never even thought of.”

  A long pause stretched out between them, but it wasn’t awkward or fraught. Instead it felt . . . contemplative, as though he was letting her confession sink in.

  Finally he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything at all. Just know that’s how I see you.”

  “Moray and Eva think I’ve been in the office too much,” he said.

  Her lips quirked. “Of that I have no doubt, but then, I can hardly judge. You had to bring me a sandwich because I’d forgotten to eat.”

  “Both married to our work,” he said.

  “And neither of us would have it any other way.”

  Yet she knew in her heart that it wasn’t enough. She wanted him wandering into her studio at odd hours to distract her and him sliding up to her at parties with a glass of wine in hand at just the right moment. She missed the companionship that came along with long rides in Holyrood Park and discussions about some novel or another they’d both just read.

  But that’s not all you miss.

  Her friend. Her lover. She wanted them both, but she didn’t know how to bridge that gulf again.

  “I think it’s time for me to retire for the night,” she said.

  Instead of bidding her good night, he took two steps forward. Then another. He was standing in front of her, his body throwing off heat and wrapping her in his masculine scent. It took everything she had not to lean into him. His lips were so close, if she just went up on her toes she could slip her arms around his neck and pull him into a kiss. But she didn’t dare. Instead she stood stone-still, fearing that one wrong move might break the spell of reconciliation that seemed to have settled over them that evening.

  Hesitating, he settled a hand on the top of her arm and slid it down, tracing over her elbow and down to her exposed wrist. He circled his fingers around it, showing just how small she was compared to him. Another shiver, this one of satisfaction, for feeling delicate and diminutive was a foreign idea to a woman whose dressmaker clucked in disapproval at the developed muscles of her arms.

  The press of flesh against flesh heated her cheeks. She didn’t know how much longer she could bear his touch without combusting.

  “Gavin, I should go to bed,” she said, her voice cracking with the strain of holding back.

  His thumb skimmed over the tops of her fingers, caressing ridge after ridge. “I know I’ve been neglectful.”

  There were the words she’d thought herself a dozen times over the last week.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” she said, straightening her shoulders.

  “You’ve always been a terrible liar,” he said.

  “I haven’t had much cause to lie in my life.”

  “Another thing I’ve always admired about you.” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “Forgive me, Ina. This has been more difficult than I could’ve predicted. I didn’t think saying a few words in front of a few witnesses would change things so much,” he said.

  “There’s a weight to them that I hadn’t expected either,” she admitted.

  “When you came to me on our wedding night, I wasn’t prepared.”

  She pulled back a little, but he held her hand fast. “And you think I was?”

  “No, I meant I wasn’t prepared for how good it would be. The passion there . . . I’ve never felt a force like that before.”

  She looked down at their clasped hands. “I was angry when you left, and hurt. I was trying to understand why I would be so repulsive to you—”

  “You’ve never repulsed me,” he said fiercely.

  “You may not feel that way when I tell you that I read the letters you left behind.”

  With his chin down and his eyes hidden under thick lashes, she couldn’t see his expression as the silence between them stretched out to a painful breaking point. She’d made a mistake in reading the letters. She’d made a mistake in telling him. She’d ruined everything again.

  “I’m glad you read them,” he said.

  “You’re glad?” she asked in surprise.

  “They were a part of my past I should’ve told you about. I was eighteen, and I loved a woman when I was still green enough to think she might not care that I was a second son with no desire to make my living in the military or the clergy. In the end, she didn’t want me,” he said.

  “Have you ever seen her again?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice neutral. It was cruel, but she couldn’t help being happy at the news that the affair had happened nearly ten years before. Still, she was human, with predilections to jealousy just like any other woman. She needed reassurances that his past was firmly in his past.

  “She was a local girl from Ashington who grew up near Oak Park, so it was inevitable that I would see her again when I traveled home,” he said slowly.

  “And you spoke?” she asked.

  “We did, but I can assure you, I have no affection left for her. She’s happy in her marriage.”

  “I’m sorry for asking, Gavin. It’s not that I doubt your word, it’s just . . .”

  He shook his head. “I should’ve told you years ago. I pined for her for much longer than any rational man would’ve, but I was ashamed. You shouldn’t have had to find out this way,” he said.

  “I was trying to understand what had happened between us. I know we agreed to a marriage without intimacy, but—”

  “That clearly didn’t work,” he said with a wry smile.

  “No, it didn’t.”

  “Perhaps it was wishful thinking,” he said.

  “I don’t like not speaking to one another. I’ve spent nearly an entire week feeling as though I’m living with a stranger when that’s not true at all. We’ve been friends for seven years.”

  Given the way the last week had been going, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d brushed aside the point. Instead he straightened his shoulders and looked her square in the eye for what felt like the first time in weeks.

  “You’re right,” he said.

  “What?” Her hand flew to her chest. “Did Gavin
Barrett just admit I was right about something without being under duress?”

  He grinned. “Remember the day, for it won’t happen again soon.”

  “Typical man,” she said, more pleased than she could say that the playfulness had returned to their conversation. It had been conspicuously absent.

  “I want to start again,” he said.

  “Start what again? Our conversation? Our friendship?”

  “Our marriage. We’ll start with a honeymoon,” he said.

  “It hadn’t even struck me that we might have one,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’d assumed we would both want to get back to work. And it isn’t as though we can pick up tomorrow and travel to Rome for a month.”

  Honeymoons were sprawling, decadent trips that required months of planning and a healthy dash of romance—two things they most certainly didn’t have a surplus of at the moment. They were also, according to Lana and Christine, an unspoken time for the couple to become better acquainted with every curve of each other’s body and every sound of pleasure.

  “I can’t promise you Rome or Switzerland or even Nice, but I can promise it’ll be a surprise,” he said.

  “When will we find the time? You just took a position at the paper and I have my work,” she said, gesturing to her statue.

  “Don’t make excuses or create reasons we can’t go. Just promise to give me one night. That’s all we’ll need,” he said.

  “We’ve already had one night,” she said, the words slipping out before she could think about the implications there.

  His stormy blue eyes pierced her. “Not like this.”

  She sucked in a breath at the promise of sensuality and sex. He was offering her one more night to lie in his arms. To feel his body stretched over hers and his weight pressing her into the sheets. To relish the flick of his tongue between her legs.

  She wanted it—wanted him.

  “What will we do?” she asked, emboldened by her curiosity.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a light kiss on the back of it. “That, my wife, will be a surprise, but I can promise you it’ll be something you’ve never done before.”

  Excitement prickled her skin. Finally they were back on solid ground, and they’d taken steps together along the unknown path ahead of them.

  “I’ll look forward to whatever you come up with,” she said.

  “Next Tuesday?” he asked.

  She nodded and wondered for a fleeting moment whether he would kiss her. She couldn’t think of a single more romantic place than this studio, with the stars glittering above them and the oil lamps she’d been working by casting a soft glow over everything.

  But instead he let go of her hand.

  “Good night, Ina. Sleep well.”

  “Good night,” she said, trying not to let creeping doubt settle in.

  She watched him walk away, knowing she too should retreat to bed. It was late, and Hero and Leander would still be here in the morning, but rather than following her own good advice, she picked up her tools and set about her work once again.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I STILL DON’T understand why it’s necessary for me to be blindfolded,” said Ina, swaying back and forth as the carriage rumbled through the streets heading out of Edinburgh.

  Gavin took the advantage of his wife’s blindfolded state to both smirk and study her from the quilted bench across from her. “Because it’s a surprise, a concept you seem to be having trouble grasping.”

  Lady that she was, she stuck out her tongue at him.

  “When did you lose your sense of adventure?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “I suppose I should be happy you didn’t dose me with chloroform, bind my wrists together, and toss me into the carriage like a wealthy debutante being spirited away for her money.”

  “I could if you want me to.”

  “No thank you,” she said with a false sweetness he’d long ago learned could be dangerous.

  “It was your suggestion. How did you come up with it anyway?”

  “I read it in a novel about a heroine living one hundred years ago. She was carried off by her father’s rival and ruined so that she was forced to marry him and hand over her inheritance.”

  “Ah, but you forget that we’re already married, so there’s no need for me to ruin you,” he said. “Also, chloroform was discovered this century.”

  The blindfold lifted slightly as she arched a brow in his direction. “What could I even see from the carriage window that would be incriminating?”

  He laughed. “We’re not doing anything that could bring the constabulary to our door.”

  “That’s a relief. We’re trying to make me less scandalous, not more.”

  “There won’t be a whiff of scandal about this adventure, I promise,” he said.

  “So are you telling me that all of this”—she waved a hand in the air before her face—“is because you’re concerned I’ll figure out our destination before we arrive?”

  He couldn’t help his grin. “You should also consider the amount of enjoyment I derive from watching how much this bothers you.”

  She crossed her arms and frowned. “Tell me what we’re doing.”

  He leaned forward to pat her hand, and she jerked a little at the suddenness of the touch but then settled back again.

  “No,” he said.

  “Then I shall sit here in silence and pout,” she announced.

  “Please do.”

  He settled back to watch her as the carriage sped over the hard-packed streets to Queensferry. His nerves had been churning ever since he’d suggested this night days ago. He hadn’t exactly planned this “honeymoon” when he’d asked her, but standing in her studio with the lamplight catching the gold in her hair, she’d been breathtaking, and he’d become caught up in the moment. There’d never been a woman quite like Ina in his life, and if she was willing to give him a little part of herself, he should hold on to it with everything he had. He would’ve been an idiot not to act, especially since he’d known immediately where to take her.

  As the carriage slowed, Gavin looked out of the window.

  “We’re here,” he said. Ina’s hand rose to the blindfold. “Not yet.”

  “Gavin.” From her tone, he could tell she was trying to level an intimidating glare at him. The problem was, she appeared to be staring at the carriage wall a few inches to the right of his shoulder rather than directly at him.

  He might have chuckled except for the nerves that skittered through him. He hadn’t been entirely truthful about avoiding the constabulary that evening. Under other circumstances, where they were going might have constituted trespassing if he hadn’t made previous arrangements. Now he could be almost certain neither he nor his wife would land in jail. Almost.

  “Are we by the water?” Ina asked, lifting her nose in the air as he opened the carriage door and climbed down to help her out.

  “Be careful of your skirts,” he warned, pushing her heavy wool dress out of the way of her boots. The muscles low in his core tensed. He might be her husband now, but any touch more intimate than holding gloved hands for a waltz still felt stolen.

  Unable to resist, Gavin placed his hands on Ina’s waist to turn her so she faced the firth that stretched out before them, inky black against the night. The lemon verbena–scented soap he’d long suspected she used to wash her hair drifted up to him, and he couldn’t help inching a little closer to her so that his legs stirred the back of her skirts.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, his lips close to her ear.

  She shivered—from the cold, no doubt—and nodded.

  Careful not to muss her hair as he untied the knot, he removed the blindfold.

  “Your chariot, madam,” he said.

  Ina stared at the little boat outfitted with a lantern and a pair of oars
. Then she looked around at the Firth of Forth.

  “This is all very mysterious,” she said with a tilt of her lips. “It’s exciting.”

  The things he would do to earn that little smile from her every single day were madness.

  “Come, I’ll help you down,” he said.

  The boat rocked back and forth gently against the ropes that secured it to the dock as he handed her in, then climbed down next to her.

  “If you’ll just sit there”—he pointed to the bow of the boat—“I’ll row.”

  She moved without argument, turning so that she faced him as he settled down and checked the oars in their locks. Thanks to the arrangements he’d made earlier that day, the boat was already loaded down with the provisions they’d need. All he had to do was row halfway across the firth, aiming for Daldour Island.

  “Once I cast off the bow lines, we’ll be on our way,” said Gavin.

  “Let me help you.” Before he could protest, Ina was untying the briny rope and tossing it onto the dock.

  He pushed off with one of the oars, letting the boat drift a few feet before dipping the pair of them into the pitch-black water. He pulled back, and they were propelled forward to their destination.

  He dipped the oars in a steady rhythm now, the soft splashes the only sound as they hit the water. Rowing was mindless, satisfying work, stretching the muscles he’d neglected to exercise in weeks. Even better, it kept his mind focused as his beautiful wife, bathed in moonlight, squinted at the faint lights of the receding shoreline.

  “Do you know,” Ina said after a moment, “the firth used to terrify me.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I worried that if I fell in, I’d be swallowed up and no one would ever find me again.” She laughed. “I suppose it seems silly now, knowing how much larger the world is.”

  “To you the world is Scotland.”

  She smiled. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live anywhere else than Edinburgh. I know London is supposed to be so much more exciting and have so many more people, but I love it here.”